A Toeplitz de-noising method using the maximum eigenvalue is proposed for the voice activity detection at low SNR scenarios. This method uses the self-correlation sequence of speech bandwidth spectrum to construct a new symmetric Toeplitz matrix and to compute the largest eigenvalue, and the double decision thresholds in the largest eigenvalue are applied in the decision framewok. Simulation re...

Prior work suggests that receiving feedback that one's response was correct or incorrect (right/wrong feedback) does not help learners, as compared to not receiving any feedback at all (Pashler, Cepeda, Wixted, & Rohrer, 2005). In three experiments we examined the generality of this conclusion. Right/wrong feedback did not aid error correction, regardless of whether participants learned facts e...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether indication-based computer order entry alerts intercept wrong-patient medication errors. MATERIALS AND METHODS At an academic medical center serving inpatients and outpatients, we developed and implemented a clinical decision support system to prompt clinicians for indications when certain medications were ordered without an appropriately coded indication on the ...

INTRODUCTION Although wrong-site surgery has garnered extensive scrutiny, the incidence of wrong-site blocks remains unknown. Our study thus sought to quantify the incidence of wrong-site blocks and examine some of their associated risk factors in our multihospital health-care system. METHODS Using quality-improvement and billing data, we quantified the total number of blocks and wrong-site b...

Richard Jeffrey long held that decision theory should be formulated without recourse to explicitly causal notions. Newcomb problems stand out as putative counterexamples to this ‘evidential’ decision theory. Jeffrey initially sought to defuse Newcomb problems via recourse to the doctrine of ratificationism, but later came to see this as problematic. We will see that Jeffrey’s worries about rati...